INVISIBLE CITIES XXVI -- Chapter 3, ..... 2

1. The ending italicized section of Chapter 3 is less exposition than it is a sharing of a city by the Khan rather than by Marco Polo.  Considering what we read in the opening italicized section, is there any difference between the book's cities by the one who experienced them or how (in this case, by a dream) they were experienced?
2. This issue of relative impartiality (if that even makes sense) seems reflected (sorry) by the concept of the city of Valdrada.  Thoughts?
3. The premise here of a city of departures, to me, comes over a little less gracefully than all the other cities, but I expect it's less for weak writing than it is for a characteristic ascribed to Marco Polo by Calvino.  What sort of person is the explorer?
4. The idea of a city that "knows only departures" is interesting, regardless of Polo's know-it-all identification.  Do such cities exist in reality or elsewhere in literature?

THE MACHINE STOPS, by E.M. Forster

E.M. Forster is another of the dozens of important authors whom I know very little about.  By recommendation of a Facebook "friend," I clicked a link to one of Forster's short stories, "The Machine Stops," and read it.  Perhaps dramatic irony, perhaps just fitting placement (by posting it on FB), the story is another science fiction allegory cautioning against mankind's growing dependence upon technology.

I don't think you can really call what I'm about to say a review, but here it goes:

The story is very well written, and possessed of some nice nuance and human insight, but I liked WALL-E better.